Statewide health care changes to affect McCready

Apr. 27, 2014

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CRISFIELD — Changes are coming to McCready. Like most Maryland hospitals, The McCready Foundation is experiencing a reduction in revenue reimbursement, in part due to continued declining volume.

“We have a great challenge ahead of us as we balance budgets while maintaining high quality care,” said Joy A. Strand, McCready’s chief executive officer.

Inpatient volume has declined more than 75 percent in the past few years. Emergency Department volume has declined 18 percent and outpatient clinic visits have declined 31 percent in the past four years.

“A lot of different factors affect these declining numbers, but without patients to care for, we are unable to pay for extra staff. Some layoffs will be necessary and vacant positions may not be filled. We are looking at all areas and will be forced to make some critical decisions across the organization. We want to assure the community that we will continue to focus on high quality patient care and most of the impact will be in non-clinical areas.” Strand said.

The proposed changes will save significant dollars in the budget. Several other opportunities for improved efficiencies are also being considered such as job consolidation, reduction in service hours in some non-clinical departments, and changes in shifts and schedules.

“These moves will stabilize us for the short term,” Strand said. “For the long-term, it will be an ongoing process as we look for innovative ways to keep people healthy and place our emphasis on Primary Care and the coordination of quality and efficient care inside and outside of the hospital. One essential piece is community education on how lifestyle choices affect your health and longevity. The rules of healthcare reimbursement have changed and we need to adapt in order to sustain McCready services for future generations.”

“I’m impressed and proud of McCready in many ways. Our providers are very good and patient focused, our staff is skilled and dedicated, our technology is new and up to date. We do have issues that need to be addressed and some things need to change; we continually look for ways to improve. I’ve worked in rural hospitals most of my career. McCready can be proud of the services they provide and Crisfield is fortunate to have a hospital in this small, rural area,” she said. “Even though we are the smallest hospital in Maryland, there are very few reasons why people should not choose us for primary care, outpatient surgery and procedures, rehabilitation or diagnostic services.”

All hospitals across the state are being affected as they adjust to the major shift in healthcare. The state of Maryland is updating the way it pays hospitals for the care they provide. Instead of a fee-for-service system that pays them for each service provided, the new system will be a pay-for-performance system that pays them for keeping people well.

“McCready is up to this challenge and will continue to provide the best quality health care. We need the community to embrace and support us and choose us for their health care. Together we can continue the legacy set by our founders over 90 years ago and build a healthy community one person at a time.” Strand said.